


Merlin Emrys, Paranormal Investigator

by thewhiteknightcentury



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Gen, More friendship really, paranormal investigator AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-27
Updated: 2013-06-27
Packaged: 2017-12-16 09:01:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/860350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewhiteknightcentury/pseuds/thewhiteknightcentury
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin's an amateur paranormal investigator and runs into Arthur while investigating a supposedly haunted house.</p>
<p>Oneshot</p>
            </blockquote>





	Merlin Emrys, Paranormal Investigator

**Author's Note:**

> My friend prompted me: "Merlin and Arthur in an abandoned house" and so I wrote this.   
> I know nothing at all about paranormal investigations, so I made Merlin also know really nothing about it.   
> This is just a really pointless stupid story.

            Flashlight in hand, Merlin ascended the stairs onto the second floor landing, steps creaking under his boots. He held a video camera in his other hand, documenting his progress through the abandoned manor in which he now found himself. The video would go up on the website that he, Merlin Emrys, _Paranormal Investigator_ , had set up over the last year. This was hopefully going to be the biggest break in his mostly nonexistent career. And by career, he really meant hobby that he pursued when he wasn’t working at the shitty diner where he bused.

            This manor was the fifth place Merlin had investigated in the past few months. It was believed to be the home of Northridge’s first and only real serial killer in documented history. Apparently, forty years ago, the man that lived there had butchered over ten girls in the basement and had eventually killed his own wife before getting caught and sentenced to the death penalty. It was almost shockingly cliché in the fact that the creepy, run-down house in the middle of the woods had been the source of many midnight dares, as rumors had been swirling around the small town saying it was haunted for decades.

            So, or course, Merlin, who lived about thirty miles away from the small town in an almost identical small town, had picked up on the legend and come to investigate. He was having little luck though; so far he had found all of about nothing in the place. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t though; Merlin was almost kind of sure that this was exactly the place in which one could find paranormal activity. At least, he hoped so.

            Merlin paused in his sweep of what appeared to be a bedroom (he thought it was because an old wooden dresser and pile of metal that could have once been a bed frame were pushed into one corner). He could’ve sworn he had heard a door closing somewhere. Muscles taunt and breathing shallow, Merlin crept as quietly as he could into the hall, switching off his flashlight and navigating by watching his camera with its night vision so as not to alert anything to his presence.

            Footsteps echoed from the landing below, crossing the entryway. The sound wasn’t hard to pinpoint, as the person (or thing… DUN DUN DUNN) walking below was obviously not trying to quiet their footfalls at all. Merlin bit his lip, heart racing, as the footsteps came closer to the stairs.

            There was a sudden crash, like someone had tripped, and then whoever it was swore loudly.

            Merlin straightened, eyebrows furrowed. As far as he knew, that did not sound like a ghost. Sighing, he flipped on his flashlight. The sudden brightness attacked his eyes, forcing him to squint to see the figure lying sprawled at the bottom of the stairs.

            Groaning, the figure stirred. He—for it was a he, a very blonde, and, from what Merlin could tell, a very attractive he—sat up, rubbing his eyes. “Who’s there?” he called up, looking into the light.

            Merlin lowered it and started down the stairs. “I’m Merlin,” he said with a grin, offering a hand to the man once he reached him. “Paranormal Investigator.”

            The man laughed and stood without taking Merlin’s hand. “’Paranormal Investigator?’ That’s a job, is it?”

            “More of a hobby, really,” Merlin said, not really taken aback at all by the man’s skepticism, as that was a usual reaction to the words “Paranormal Investigator.” “What are you doing here anyway?” Merlin asked.

            The man shrugged. “It’s supposed to be a game, isn’t it? Someone dares you to go in the house at midnight and stay in for one hour. I got dared, so, I came in.”

            “Kind of a stupid game. You could get seriously hurt.”

            “By what?”

            “Ghosts, of course.”

            The man just laughed. “There’s no such thing as ghosts.”

            Merlin merely shrugged. Not everyone believed in the supernatural as he did. “What’s your name?” he asked the blonde.

            “Arthur,” the man replied with an arrogant air, rolling back his shoulders, “Arthur Pendragon.”

            “Pleasure,” Merlin said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m just gonna go back to my investigating. That is, if you haven’t scared away all the ghosts.” Merlin looked down with a frown on his face, contemplating if this was a possibility. Would ghosts be frightened away by humans? Is that why he had yet to see any—because they were afraid of him?

            He started to walk away. Should he declare his intentions not to harm them? But why would they be afraid? It really all came down to what he believed of the nature of ghosts—

            “Now wait just a minute!” Arthur called after him.

            “What?” Merlin, who had begun to ascend the stairs again, said.

            “Well, you’re not just gonna leave me here, are you?” Arthur asked, keeping stride with Merlin.

            Merlin grinned turning to look at his companion. “Why? You’re not scared are you?”

            Arthur sputtered. “No, of course not. Why would I be scared? I just thought it’d be better to…you know, stick together. I mean, what else am I really going to do in this place for the next—” Arthur looked down at his watch, “—forty-six minutes?”

            “You don’t _have_ to stay in here,” Merlin pointed out, not even looking at the blonde as he swept the flashlight around, looking for some sort of activity.

            “Of course I do,” Arthur retorted.

            “Why?”

            Arthur stumbled over his words for a moment. “Well—it’s…it’s a matter of honor! It’s proving you’re not a coward, showing—“

            Merlin snorted, finally stopping and looking at Arthur. “That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” he said, before turning to continue in his videotaping of the room in which they were standing.

            “Yes, it makes so much less sense than, say, _paranormal investigating,_ ” Arthur replied mockingly.

            Merlin didn’t dignify it with a response.

            They both stayed silent for a few minutes, until Merlin pulled a device out of his bag and began fiddling with it.

            “What’s that?” Arthur asked, looking over Merlin’s shoulder.

            “It’s an EMF detector. It detects electromagnetic fields and can help you tell if there’s any paranormal presence nearby.”

            Arthur bit back a scathing reply about “paranormal presences” and merely nodded his head as though he completely accepted the idea. Truthfully, he thought that the other man’s brain might be a bit addled, that maybe he wasn’t all right up there. Anyone who spent their time skulking around old abandoned houses in search of ghosts must have something wrong with their head. A small part of him told him that he had also been skulking around an old abandoned house, but Arthur shook his head and dismissed it; that was completely different.

            The EMF detector started making noise, and Merlin’s eyes immediately lit up. “What does that mean?” Arthur asked.

            “I think it means there might be something paranormal around,” Merlin replied excitedly.

            “’You think?’ You’re not very good at this, are you?” Arthur said, but Merlin didn’t hear. He was already out of the room and pacing slowly down the long hallway. The beeping of the EMF detector became steadily faster as he walked the length of it, approaching a closed door at the end of it. He stood before the door, sure that this must be the source of whatever was causing his EMF detector to go off. Merlin could feel his heart pounding in his ears; finally, he might have found something.

            Slowly, Merlin reached his hand out to grasp the metal doorknob. It was shockingly cold to the touch. Just as he began turning it, Arthur spoke up. “Wait, what are you doing?” he hissed.

            Merlin jumped, having forgotten that Arthur was even there. “What does it look like?”

            “But…if there is a—a ghost or whatever in there, not that I’m saying there would be, seeing as how ghosts don’t actually exist, what are you even going to do?”

            This caused Merlin to pause. He’d never actually thought about what he’d do if he ever did find a ghost. “I’m not sure,” Merlin said with a shrug, and opened the door anyway.

            The room was at least twenty degrees colder than the hallway had been, and both men shivered as they entered at the sudden drop in temperature. The EMF detector suddenly stopped beeping, leaving the room in silence. Merlin hit it lightly, but it didn’t turn back on.

            Merlin slowly pointed his camera to all corners of the room in turn, but it was completely empty. There was no sign of anything paranormal.

            Sighing, Merlin relaxed a little, still disappointed. “There’s nothing here.”

            Arthur let out a laugh that didn’t quite cover up how nervous he had been. He turned to look out the window. “I told you there wouldn’t be anything in here. There’s no such thing as—“

            A loud crash echoed through the room. Arthur jumped and whirled around, unable to stop the ridiculous high-pitched and quite feminine sounding scream that had been torn from his lips.

            Merlin, standing over the EMF detector that he had dropped, which had been the cause of the noise, stared at Arthur for almost a whole fifteen seconds before bursting into a round of laughter that was so violent he fell over to the floor and laid there, grasping at his chest as tears leaked out of the corners of his eyes and into his hair.

            Arthur glared, red-faced, as Merlin, having laughed for a good five minutes, slowly calmed, before he looked at Arthur’s face and the laughter began anew. The blonde just shook his hand, trying very hard not to react at all, and found that instead of really wanting to hit Merlin, he was fighting the impulse to smile. Somehow, the corners of his mouth, very much against his will, lifted as he watched Merlin’s laughing fit die down to quiet giggling.

            The whole scene was just so ridiculous that when Merlin looked at Arthur and for the third time couldn’t contain his laughter, Arthur found himself joining in.

            It was a strange and unlikely beginning to an even more strange and unlikely friendship.


End file.
